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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23300941">Silence</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorningHasBrokenTheTrees/pseuds/MorningHasBrokenTheTrees'>MorningHasBrokenTheTrees</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Attempts at communication, Chaos, Heavy Angst, M/M, POV Michael Guerin, no a getting together fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 12:33:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,126</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23300941</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorningHasBrokenTheTrees/pseuds/MorningHasBrokenTheTrees</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After finding out he spend hours waiting for a man that was hooking up with one of his best friends, Alex wanted to talk. Michael? Michael just wanted the chaos to stop.</p>
<p>Or Alex comes to the junkyard to talk and maybe fix things and Michael accidentally tells him why he can´t.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Michael Guerin &amp; Alex Manes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Silence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My apologies for any gramatical errors, english is not my first language. Any feedback (as long as it´s constructive) is very welcome! This fic got a bit more dramatic than i originally intended but i hope you enjoy it anyway.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been hours since Michael stopped his work in the bunker because he just couldn’t seem to focus. Chaos, that was how he had described the inside of his mind to Alex once. Sitting in the airstream guitar in his hands, he thought it was still the best way to describe it. Loud chaos. Fast moving and highly associative, thoughts, feelings, everything jumbled together, jumping from one end to another, feeling everything at once, and it was just <em>so loud.</em></p>
<p>‘Remembering sixth grade science class and knowing he should focus on Mrs. Henderson’s lesson on hereditary traits, but Jenny had brought him a cupcake at recess, and he was still mortified because he had BLUSHED. The surprised happy shriek Isobel let out when they reunited after several year apart. Perhaps if he factored in Hilbert space to calculate proton spin? Yeah, he hadn’t worked that angle of physics for the hypothetical ship in two years but, yeah that might work, now where had he left that notebook? The taste of blueberries. The nice social worker that came and rescued him from his second foster home in Albuquerque at 4 in the morning had also given him a muffin when he had eventually gotten hungry, sitting in the office, while the humans around him where deciding what to do with him. Feeling unwanted and alone. Would his mom have loved the smell of nailpolish like he did? His mom eyes. The smell of Caulfield. Max. Oh god, Max.’ He took a shaky breath. He just needed it to quiet down, just a minute so that he could breathe. He just... he...</p>
<p>When Max had healed his hand, he had thought, he had hoped that music was back in his life. That it could pause his mind and the world around him and just lose himself in the sounds of the guitar, like he used to. Maybe his mind had gotten louder, maybe it had been to long, but it just wouldn’t fit together like before. It wasn’t enough anymore. But right now he desperately needed it to be. So after several hours of frantic playing, half a dozen bottles of nailpolish remover, a few episodes of frustrated pacing and a piece of scrap metal that would never quite be the same, he was back sitting in front for the airstream, pressing his sore fingers to the strings. G chord, D followed by F sharp, ‘The comfortable weight of a tight hug. All the nights he spent sitting alone in the desert at Fosters Ranch, waiting for someone, anyone, to please just come and get him.’ He moved this aching fingers into E minor ’max’s bare body floating in the pod’ D chord. ‘What was the difference between a muffin and a cupcake anyway?’</p>
<p>His thoughts were interruped by the sound of a car door closing, followed by footsteps. ‘How had he missed the car engine?’ he looked up from the guitar to see Alex.</p>
<p>‘‘No’’ he said immediately.</p>
<p>‘‘I haven’t said anything’’ the airman responded.</p>
<p>‘‘I can’t do this right now, Alex’’ Michael pleaded quietly, setting the guitar aside and standing up.</p>
<p>‘‘So what, I come here and pour my hear out to you, you run of in the middle of the conversation, and then you stand me up in order to hook up with my best friend, and now you won’t even talk to me?’’ Alex was getting frustrated, not expecting to be shut down before the conversation had even started.</p>
<p>‘‘I know what you are gonna say, and I can’t Alex’’ ‘’Why the hell not?’’ Michael stared at the man infront of him, ‘fuck, fuck, abort, I can’t, I..’ he turned away and moved towards the airstream.</p>
<p>‘‘Michael’’ Alex said, following Michael, putting his hand on the alien’s schoulder.</p>
<p>‘‘I’m broken, Alex’’ Michael responded sharply, twisting around. Alex was caught off guard by the sudden move and stumbled back slightly.</p>
<p>‘‘After everything that happened, after all these years of shit, after max, after caufield, my mom…’’ Michael added, voice breaking slightly. With it something in him gave way, and when he continued talking it was almost like he couldn’t stop. Like all the chaos found a direction, and it wanted <em>out</em>.</p>
<p>‘‘Underneath this skin, I’m a thousand papercuts and even more spliters, all I am is raw and bare, held together by a few pieces of duct tape and a singe bandaid’’ The word stumbling out. ‘‘And if we have this conversation, I will cave. I will cave and I’ll let you in.’’ Michael continued looking up into Alex’s deep brown eyes, god, he needed Alex to stop looking at him like that.</p>
<p>‘‘Because fuck, even though you are tangled up with all these terrible things in my life, I let you come close. Everytime you come, I let you in. Because I love you.’’ He breathed ‘‘and for a few days it so good. Its amazing and cosmic, and the comfort of soft blankets wrapped in the feeling of being accepted, and the closest thing I have <em>ever</em> felt to home. And it makes me hope, Alex. It makes me hope that there is a place for me on this earth. And that, that maybe I’m not so broken that nobody can love me’’ he continued breath hitching. ‘Why was he still talking?’ ‘‘and then it all just crashes and burns and I am left standing there, holding the pieces.. ’’</p>
<p>‘‘Michael’’</p>
<p>‘‘I can’t do it anymore, Alex. I’m barely holding it together. And I can’t I.. If I let you come close and you breath on me funny, I will break.’’ he breathed. ‘‘And this time there won’t be enough left to put back together again Alex.. I just..’’ and with that the flood of words dried up and all he could do was stand there, breathing shakily.</p>
<p>He could feel the weight of Alex’s eyes on him but couldn’t bring himself to look, to see the hurt, confusion and thoughs in those familiar brown eyes. Several moments passed silence. ‘I can’t and I need this to stop, and I need that to be okay Alex, I need that to be okay, please’</p>
<p>‘‘Okay’’ Michaels head snapped up ‘What? No, he must have misheard or maybe the chaos was finally driving him insane’ ‘‘Okay?’’ he said doubtfully.</p>
<p>‘‘Okay‘’ the airman repeated steadily. And with that, it was like a weight was lifted. Like an invissible force had been exerting pressure on every inch of his body and he somehow hadn´t noticed except when it disappeared. He could breathe. He took a deep breath and his nose filled with that comforting scent of earth, sweat and that weird shampoo, ‘Alex’, and for the first time in a long time, his mind was quiet.</p>
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